hs2 and road developments

• over 35 million cars on the road in the uk
• In 2014 the government launched a 15 billion road improvement strategy to improve conditions and capacity
• one way these roads are being developed is by

  • stretches of motorways being converted into smart motorways enabling traffic flow and reducing congestion
  • 2020- highway England published plans to spend 27.4 billion on new road developments including a tunnel under Stonehenge
  • over 1600 km of new lanes will be added to new motorways
• How is the rail network being developed

  1. London's Crossrail- 16.8 billion involving 32 km of new lines bored beneath central London- improve connections across London
  2. electrification of Trans-Pennine Railway -will improve connections between Manchester and York
• What is HS2 (high speed 2)

  this is a 98 billion pound project that involves constructing a high speed rail line between London and Birmingham and towards Leeds and Sheffield
• What do supporters say about HS2:

  1. it will create thousands of jobs in the Midlands and northern England
  2. people say it will generate 40 billion to the uk economy
  3. it will increase the number of passengers and make transport more sustainable
  4. it will also reduce the number of people that fly between UK cities
  5. it will be a faster way to travel between cities
  6. it will be carbon-neutral because it will journeys that use other transport
• What do objectors say about HS2

  1. it will be more likely to create more jobs in London and people will commute there instead
  2. the cost of HS2 is estimated to be 98 billion and it is difficult to predict how much money it will generate
  3. existing rail routes could be improved to increase the number of passengers
  4. the number of people flying within the UK is already falling
  5. people don't want to travel faster - intercity routes are fast enough
  6. it will increase co emissions because it uses more power
• other strategies are

  • government incentive packages used to attract TNC's like Nissan in Washington
  • plans transport improvements
  • enterprise zones- government incentives encourage new businesses to be set up in deprived areas
  • Local enterprise partnerships- encouraging investment and boosting the local economy